#BioTexCom

[coochiequeens]

The some country that tuned a blind eye to while the nuns who ran the Madgelian Laundries buried babies in unmarked graves are now turning a blind eye to babies being created in war zones while their birth mothers are being exploited

Ireland’s new surrogacy law is legalising the sale of children

The human rights watchdog says our new health act allows for the trafficking of women and babies, but the health minister is ignoring its warning

Brenda Power Sunday September 22 2024

Despite the war, Ukraine’s baby factories are still flourishing. One of the biggest global players in the commercial surrogacy business is the Swiss-registered BioTexCom, which controls 70 per cent of the Ukrainian market and a quarter of the global business. Commercial surrogacy is estimated to have pumped €1.5 billion into the Ukrainian economy since 2018 alone, and the international market for surrogate babies, with an estimated value of €12.5 billion in 2022, has been growing at a rate of 25 per cent a year.

About half of Ukraine’s estimated 2,500 annual surrogate pregnancies are carried out through BioTexCom and, in the first 11 months of the war, the company reported that about 600 couples had travelled to the country to use its services. At approximately €50,000 per surrogacy, that means BioTexCom took in about €30 million in that period alone. A Kyiv clinic reported last year that the war hadn’t stopped Irish couples travelling for surrogacy services, and customers from Germany, Britain and Italy have also ensured that business remains brisk in these baby factories.

Under the new Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Act 2024, which passed all stages in the Oireachtas in May and was signed into law in July, Ireland is the first EU country to legalise commercial surrogacy. That’s not me saying this, by the way. That’s the view of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), in its report on human trafficking published last week.

The commission is “concerned” that section 8 of the act, which covers international surrogacy, effectively extends the Irish legislation “to a practice not permitted in any other EU state, in an area marred with increasing human trafficking”. It also fears that this new Irish law “may thwart other countries’ efforts to protect their own citizens from trafficking and reproductive exploitation”. We are, in other words, about to become legally complicit in the trafficking of women for the purposes of providing babies to Irish couples.

The commission has written twice to Stephen Donnelly, the health minister, pointing out that the law does not fulfil the state’s obligations under EU law to prevent the trafficking of women for exploitative surrogacy. At the date of drafting its report, the commission said, no response had been received.

The exploitation of vulnerable women for surrogacy, the commission says, is “one of the most concerning, novel and emerging forms of trafficking”. Yet we have enacted a law that legalises what the UN special rapporteur on human rights has called “the sale of children”.

The new law creates a “double standard”, according to the commission, whereby domestic, “altruistic” surrogacy is tightly regulated but the international market will be subject to “light touch” regulation. There will be no way to ensure that other states will comply with the requirements of the act, for example that the surrogate mother is paid only “reasonable expenses” and is allowed a 21-day period to withdraw her consent to the arrangement.

This will certainly put Ukrainian law at odds with the new Irish position, since one Ukrainian clinic boasts on its 2024 page: “Legal requirements are not strict. Ukraine surrogacy law is clear that the gestational carrier has no parental rights over the child and she has no ability to keep the child.” This, in theory, will make Ukrainian surrogacy deals illegal.

And the idea that the foreign surrogate mother and the surrogacy agencies should receive only “reasonable expenses” is dismissed as disingenuous nonsense by the commission: “It is unlikely that a woman would undertake a pregnancy on behalf of a stranger from another country without being offered a significant incentive. It is a fiction to suggest otherwise, but that appears to be the basis on which the legislation is to operate.”

The “reasonable expenses” provision might, the commission warns, encourage Irish couples to seek surrogacy in poor and underdeveloped countries where surrogacy is permissible, including Kenya, Malaysia and Nigeria, and where they can get away with paying buttons to the surrogate mother on the basis of comparative economic value. And that would amount to a commercial advantage, making the surrogacy illegal — not that the new law will be able to do anything to prevent it.

That Ukrainian clinic (“We build families with love”) also offers “good genetic testing facilities and gender selection, just in case wishful parents want high success rates”. Here’s how the commission addresses this delicately phrased service: “While there is no large-scale data, surrogate mothers have reported undergoing forced abortions of foetuses unwanted by clients … There are also consistent reports from India, Nepal, Thailand and now Ukraine of client parents abandoning unwanted children, particularly those with disabilities.”

Just recently, says the commission, eight people were arrested at the Mediterranean Fertility Institute in Greece, which had advertised its services and its “excellent surrogate support programme” on the Growing Families website. Vulnerable women had been lured from Albania and Georgia on false pretences and “forced to undergo hormonal treatment, egg extraction and insemination for surrogacy”. Or, to put it another way, they were abducted and impregnated against their will so that wealthy western couples could buy their babies.

And that, in a nutshell, is what our human rights watchdog has been trying to warn the minister for health about; this is what it is telling him will be the consequence of his new law on surrogacy. And he has been ignoring the warnings and refusing to respond to the correspondence. For some reason, this chilling chapter in the IHREC report was also ignored in media coverage of its launch last week. We are about to legalise commercial surrogacy, in a market where women are being trafficked and raped to maintain a global business worth in excess of €20 billion annually. You may well support that measure, but you should understand it first.

Transparency is the best weapon

Gardai were called to a brawl this month outside a supermarket in west Dublin. Within hours, social media sites were buzzing with claims that the protagonist was an immigrant male, armed with a knife attacking schoolchildren — pictures purporting to be the violent attacker also appeared online. Later in the week, gardai issued a statement denying that the incident involved an adult male or a foreign national — all the participants were school students and Irish nationals, and the incident was contained within the school. Not that any of the online agitators believed a word of it and for that, arguably, the gardai have only themselves to blame.

Last week, gardai applied for reporting restrictions preventing the identification of a man accused of attempting to abduct a five-year-old boy during a party at a Dublin apartment building. Because of “the current climate in the country”, a garda told the court, and “the sensitive nature of the case”, it was preferable that the accused should not be identified. The judge at that hearing agreed, citing the “social media-fuelled climate we live in”.

How to tell the country that the accused was an immigrant, then, without telling the country that the accused was an immigrant, notionally putting every non-national in the dock and guaranteeing heightened interest in the case. When a number of media organisations quite properly challenged this decision, another judge partially lifted the restriction to name the individual but not his address. The obligation to dispense justice in public is a pillar of democracy, and is also a crucial element of the social contract; the public should also be able to trust that the prosecutions of both immigrants and nationals are being reported on as far as possible.

Social media is already awash with unfounded claims that the traditional media, gardai and the courts are conspiring to conceal the number of immigrants and asylum seekers before the courts. But at a time when transparency and reason are the best weapons against extremist agitation, unnecessarily constraining court reporting restrictions can only serve to alarm even the most moderate observers

[ziobrowski]

[coochiequeens]

If you're so desperate for a baby you are OK with them starting out in a warzone maybe you should ask yourself why are you willing to go to that extreme instead of adopting.

People need to realise the lengths we’ll go to’: Ukraine’s surrogacy industry booms amid war

A British couple has described how they met their twins in incubators before having to move to a safe room as an air raid siren sounded Amita Chakravorty and Sham Jagpal had twins via surrogate in Ukraine

By Gabriella Jozwiak December 14, 2024

Juggling feeds and nappy changes is a learning curve for all first-time parents of twins. But when London couple Amita Chakravorty and Sham Jagpal became mum and dad to Rey and Ryo in July this year, they also had to learn to survive missile and drone attacks, as the boys were born through surrogacy in Ukraine.

“It’s been a really crazy journey,” Amita told The i Paper from the couple’s London home while the four month olds napped. “People need to realise the lengths people like us will go to have a baby.”

The couple are among thousands globally choosing the war zone as a surrogacy destination. Despite the dangers and difficulties accessing the country, Ukrainian agencies say business is booming.

Couples come from countries including Pakistan, China, Australia, Spain and Italy. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine was the third-most popular for British couples after the US and UK, according to fertility law firm NGO Law.

Since then, more than 1,000 babies have been born through BioTexCom Surrogacy agency alone, according to its legal adviser Denis Herman.

On the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, about 200 surrogate mothers with this provider were pregnant. “Not even a month passed and we received calls to start or continue surrogacy processes,” he said.

Amita Chakravorty and Sham Jagpal missed the births of their twins after they arrived early and were confronted with life in a war zone

In addition to war, demand for surrogacy services has also withstood new laws coming into force in Italy. While surrogacy is already illegal in the country, in December a new law will ban couples from having a baby abroad. Herman believes this will not stop Italian couples coming to Ukraine, even though they could face up to two years and a €1m (£832,000) fine.

Alexander Schuster, a lawyer specialising in medical reproductive rights in Italy told The i Paper he would “strongly refrain anyone from going to Ukraine [from Italy] because it’s pretty sure they will have criminal proceedings started under the new law”. However, he believed couples could avoid the sanctions by entering plea bargains if this was their first crime.

For Amita, who suffers endometriosis and adenomyosis, surrogacy was a last resort.

After a decade trying to start a family involving 15 rounds of IVF in four different European countries and three miscarriages, the couple opted for surrogacy with the Ukrainian World Centre of Baby (WCOB) agency in 2023.

“We looked at the UK, Columbia, Mexico – we did our research,” says Sham. Ukraine only accepts married heterosexual couples, or those in a civil partnership, that are medically unable to carry a pregnancy to term. At least one intended parent must be genetically connected to the child – usually the father. If an egg donor is needed, this cannot be the Ukrainian surrogate.

Ukraine was preferable for the couple because Ukrainian law recognises the intended parents as legal guardians from conception. In the UK, the surrogate mother is the child’s legal parent at birth, meaning parental rights have to be transferred by parental order or adoption.

Amita and Sham had their biological materials (embryos, sperm and eggs) already frozen at a clinic in Czechia. WCOB transported these to Ukraine, meaning the couple only had to make one trip to collect their babies.

“We were clearly apprehensive because the country was at war,” said Sham. “But the clinic said everything is functioning normally in Kyiv. It was perfectly open for us to continue with the process.”

The babies are now four months old and back in the UK

Costs in Ukraine are also markedly lower than other countries. Helen Shumskyh, head of sales at Vireo Agency in Ukraine, said that the cost of surrogacy in Ukraine was between £33,000 and £54,000 for a package, including transport to the country, accommodation, surrogate expenses and agency fees.

In the US costs range from £103,000 to £276,000. In the UK surrogacy is legal, but surrogates cannot be paid, and surrogacy agreements are not enforceable by law.

“The price in Ukraine now is almost the same as it was before the war started,” Shumskyh said. “Usually in surrogacy there is a yearly evaluation of the prices, but no one has increased rates here because we all understand that in our current situation we need to attract customers. After the war finishes, we expect prices to change.”

The agency currently has 15 couples at various stages of their surrogacy journey. Shumskyh says demand increases every month. The company has sought to reassure prospective parents by relocating surrogate mothers to Western cities of Lviv and Ushgorod once they reach 28 weeks of pregnancy. These are far away from the front line and experience fewer attacks. Although surrogates can live in higher-risk eastern regions until then.

Ukrainian surrogate mothers are aged up to 35 and must have already given birth naturally to a healthy child. They receive between £11,700 and £14,200 per pregnancy. Nova Espero agency deputy director Sergey Glushenko said surrogate mothers were “normal, wealthy women” who wanted to help others, as well as make money.

“In 90 per cent of cases the surrogate wants to improve their living conditions, such as buy a new apartment,” Glushenko said. Despite worsening economic conditions in Ukraine, he said the number of women applying to become surrogates had not increased.

Amita and Sham never met their surrogate mother. They missed the birth as the twins arrived unexpectedly almost six weeks prematurely. Because flights to Ukraine are banned, the couple travelled to Poland then by car to Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.

“We were stepping into the unknown,” says Amita. “We passed so many graveyards on the way. It became real that so many people have died.”

Finally the couple met their twins, who were both in incubators. “There are no words to describe the feelings when you see your babies,” Amita recalls. But quickly they were brought back to reality when an air raid sounded and hospital staff moved the babies to a safe room. It was the first of numerous such experiences.

The couple spent many sleepless nights sheltering in their AirBnB bathroom when sirens sounded. On more than one occasion they saw explosions in the sky as air defences shot down enemy drones above them.

On 26 August they took cover in an underground station as Russia attacked Ukraine with 200 missiles and drones, knocking out the power supply. “When we came out, everywhere you could smell chemicals or gunpowder,” said Amita. “At the flat we had no electricity and couldn’t sterilise bottles for the babies’ feeds.”

The couple expected to spend six weeks in Kyiv waiting for passports to be issued. In the end, legal delays left the family stranded for more than two months. Despite this, the couple said they “wouldn’t change a thing”. But recommend others consider Ukraine carefully, as the paperwork took them longer than anticipated.

Since bringing their boys home, Amita and Sham have kept in close contact with friends they made in Ukraine. “They were generous, kind,” said Sham. “It was a kind of warmth you don’t see in the world anymore.”

Amita has not deactivated the air raid alerts on her phone. She believes people in the UK are unaware of the danger the war poses. “This is real,” she said. “Don’t think that war is not going to come here.”

Yes I have empathy for a woman who wpuld go through 15 rounds of IVF in four different European countries and three miscarriages, but at some point the someone in the industry should have stopped taking money and suggested adoption.

And was it a coincidence that they had boys or was the frozen material they sent to Ukraine sex screened beforehand?

[coochiequeens]

Who the hell looks at a WAR ZONE and thinks that's a good place to start a babies life?

Ukraine, amid war-torn chaos, has emerged as the go-to surrogacy haven for Western couples seeking parenthood. But behind the brave smiles of new parents lies a shadow of corruption, abuse, and economic struggles, calling for a deeper look at the nation’s surrogacy tale.

Ukraine has long been known as a surrogacy hotspot, with a quarter of the world’s surrogate babies born there in 2018. Despite the ongoing war, surrogacy clinics in Kyiv are still attracting foreign couples, including those from Italy, Romania, Germany, and Britain, eager to have a child.

That percentage has likely increased since Moscow banned the practice for foreign couples last year, with Russian lawmakers citing the need to “prevent the trafficking of our children.”

Dark Shadows of Corruption and Abuse

In Ukraine over 1,000 children have been born in Ukraine to surrogate mothers since the start of the Russian invasion, with more than 600 born at the BiotexCom clinic in Kyiv, one of Europe’s largest surrogacy clinics. Pechenoha, one of the staff of Biotexcom said “I have not met a single woman with a good economic situation who has decided to go through this process out of kindness.” 

Economic Setbacks and the Call for Women’s Return

However, behind the apparent success of the surrogacy industry, allegations of corruption and abuse have surfaced, raising concerns about the authorities’ protection in both Kiev and Washington. The industry has faced criticism, with some referring to clinics as “children factories” and calling for restrictions on foreign use of Ukrainian surrogate services during periods of martial law. 

For the surrogate mothers, financial reasons often drive their decision to carry a child for others, but the process is significantly less joyous. 

One Ukrainian woman told Al Jazeera in 2018 that the German firm promised her an apartment for the duration, but forced her to share it with four other pregnant women, and to share a bed for seven months of her pregnancy. Another said that women who left their accommodation and failed to return before a curfew would be subjected to fines, as would women who criticized the company or attempted to communicate with the foreign parents. 

“We were treated like cattle and mocked by the doctors,” she said.

Moreover, Ukraine’s economy has faced significant setbacks due to Russia’s invasion, with a staggering 30% contraction in 2022. As a result, Ukraine is pleading to its women to return from abroad to bolster the economy.  Bloomberg reported, Ukraine is planning an incentive scheme to call Ukrainian women back into the war-torn nation from Europe. 

Owing to the war, many intelligent and talented individuals, particularly young women, have left Ukraine. The exodus of skilled individuals from the country is becoming a hindrance to Ukraine’s economic progress, resulting in the loss of valuable human resources. 

However, Ukraine’s focus on encouraging Ukrainian women to return seems surprising, as it appears to be based on misinformation and plain lies. It’s unrealistic to believe that by simply bringing back women, Ukraine wants to generate a revenue of $20 billion. 

Now, let’s not forget Ukraine being labeled as a “European hub of Sex Tourism.” Before the Ukraine war, sex tourism in the country was on the rise, attracting foreign visitors seeking sexual activities. Unfortunately, Ukrainian women gained an infamous reputation for engaging in prostitution for meager earnings. Which clears the air and give answers to our questions. 

Now, despite the complexities of the surrogacy landscape and the ongoing conflict, Ukraine’s surrogacy clinics have emerged as the top choice since Feb 2022. 

It seems like even amid conflict, people are eager to be parents, but with the industry’s reputation for corruption, it’s not just baby bumps that have everyone talking!